The Fold: Book Review
I’ve been following the Sword & Laser podcast for a while, but I never really had gotten around to reading along with any of their book picks until this year, with The Fold.
Continue reading “The Fold: Book Review”Tag: horror
The Vampire Lovers: Film Review
Hammer Films has always had some form of sexual content in their movies, generally in the form of various generic barmaids with cleaving-accentuating outfits being menaced by some form of monster (usually Dracula, but occasionally a werewolf or Frankenstein’s monster. However, due to Hammer’s frequent clashes with the BBFC, never with actual nudity. Similarly, while critical discussion of vampire fiction has discussed a degree of homoeroticism, up until the 70s, much of what you got was male actors staring intensely into someone’s eyes before feeding on them – with probably the distinct exception of Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural. The Vampire Lovers crosses both of those lines.
Continue reading “The Vampire Lovers: Film Review”Mandy: Film Video Review
It’s time to review the other movie from the director of Beyond the Black Rainbow.
Continue reading “Mandy: Film Video Review”
Film Review: Mandy (2018)
I don’t know if I’m watching Mandy at the best of all possible times or the worst. I’m watching it while surrounded by a toxic cloud of smoke that makes it unsafe to go outside, in the largest wildfire season Oregon has faced in my lifetime or my parents’ lifetime, while under a Level 1 evacuation warning. On the one hand, I’m watching the movie with an ambient atmosphere that exudes dread going in. On the other hand, maybe that’s what’s helping me get the most out of it.
Continue reading “Film Review: Mandy (2018)”
The Gate: Film Review
I haven’t watched a lot of “Kids on Bikes” movies and fiction – I’ve seen ET, Explorers, and The Goonies, and as of this writing am currently in the middle of reading IT (which is something of a Kids on Bikes story for the flashback sequences) but I haven’t seen or read any of the other works that really feed into subsequent works like Stranger Things. I haven’t seen Monster Squad, and until recently, I hadn’t seen The Gate – a lesser-known work in the genre that I hadn’t heard about until Giant Bomb did a “Film and 40s” commentary for it with the Giant Beast crew. Well, this oversight has, at long last, been rectified.
Continue reading “The Gate: Film Review”
Inferno (1980): Film (Video) Review
We have Inferno, the middle installment of the Three Mothers series after Suspiria, this week, and it’s sadly inferior to the first film.
Continue reading “Inferno (1980): Film (Video) Review”
Manga Review: H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories
A few weeks ago (as of when I write this in October) I came to learn that the most popular tabletop RPG in Japan right now was neither D&D nor a homegrown RPG like Sword World, but Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu. Also, I learned Dark Horse Comics had released a collection of adaptations of the works of H.P. Lovecraft by artist Gou Tanabe and had announced a planned release of Tanabe’s adaptation of At The Mountains of Madness. Thus, it seemed appropriate to read the first of Tanabe’s adaptations and get a feel for his take on Lovecraft’s work. Continue reading “Manga Review: H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories”
Film Review: House (1977)
We conclude our collection of horror films with a Japanese horror film that… is a little tricky to show on the channel without giving away all the great visuals. Continue reading “Film Review: House (1977)”
Film Review: Altered Space
Altered Space is something of a horror film that isn’t quite a horror film. In a way, it’s difficult to describe – this is my first time watching a film by Ken Russell, but his reputation has preceded him. Specifically, his reputation for psychedelic, religious, and psychosexual imagery. All of those things are present in Altered Space in spades – with subject matter that is fundamentally horrific but is never presented in that manner. Continue reading “Film Review: Altered Space”
Film Review: Mother of Tears (2007)
Almost 20 years after Dario Argento released the middle installment of his “Three Mothers Trilogy” he made the final installment of the series – Mother of Tears. As with most series that take this long between installments, there is a sense that what you’ll get with the final installment can never live up to what expectations you’ve set for it. However, even then, Mother of Tears is particularly disappointing. Continue reading “Film Review: Mother of Tears (2007)”
DVD Review: Cheezy Horror – Vol. 1
One of the interesting things I like about the boom of interest in Exploitation film after Grindhouse, along with the rise of DVDs as a media format is the rise of the Trailer DVD – a DVD chock full of trailers for various exploitation films from the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. They make for a great snapshot of a moment in time, showcasing both how films were sold (and what you could get away with in trailers), along with the movies being sold. Continue reading “DVD Review: Cheezy Horror – Vol. 1”
Movie Review: Sugar Hill (1974)
“Blacksploitation”, is something I’d describe more as a cinematic movement more than a genre. This is because it spans just so many genres of cinema – action films, gangster movies, science fiction films, and horror movies – and sometimes even multiples at the same time. Such is the case with Sugar Hill. Continue reading “Movie Review: Sugar Hill (1974)”
Movie Review: Inferno (1980)
Suspiria was what I’d describe as one of the best films Dario Argento ever made, with a tremendous visual esthetic, particularly through the use of color in the film, combined with the excellent score by Goblin. So, it’s not surprising that Dario made a semi-spiritual sequel. The second film, Inferno, introduced the thematic series that Argento named “The Three Mothers” trilogy, with the films based around three witches drawn from Thomas De Quincey’s Suspiria de Profundis. Inferno aims to basically be “like Suspiria but more so,” but it doesn’t quite work. Continue reading “Movie Review: Inferno (1980)”
Film Review: Eyes Without A Face
Eyes Without A Face is a very engaging, but bleak horror film. Not bleak in the sense of the horror exploitation films of the 1970s, where the endings erred on the side of “Nobody survived and this is going to happen again” or even just “None of our protagonists survived” as was the case of Night of The Living Dead. The film’s ending does have a true sense of catharsis, and if it was narratively framed differently, it would end on a much more upbeat note.
To get into this, I’m going to have to get into spoilers for a film from 1960. If you want to come in cold, consider this your warning. Continue reading “Film Review: Eyes Without A Face”
Book Review: Paperbacks from Hell
In the ’70s, and ’80s, there was a massive boom in horror cinema in various stripes, from the US and Italy, combined with the general boom in Exploitation films. This boom wasn’t just limited to film. This period also saw a dramatic increase in the amount of horror novels published in the US – with highly successful novels like The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Amityville Horror, and Jaws … Continue reading Book Review: Paperbacks from Hell
Book Review: The Hastur Cycle
The thing with collections of short stories is that, in theory, they should serve as your narrative buffet. You take the stories you like, and if there’s one you don’t like, you can move past it and go on to the next. However, much as some buffets have nothing to like, occasionally some short story collections have nothing enjoyable to them. Thus is the case … Continue reading Book Review: The Hastur Cycle
Film Review: Dawn of the Dead (1978)
There are a few films that other people really like that I have completely bounced off of. I bounced off of Fight Club due to how the film handles mental health issues – and particular its discussion of support groups – using support groups as the negative avenue which Tyler Durden uses to put together Project Mayhem, and ignoring or dismissing the helpful elements support … Continue reading Film Review: Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Film Review: Ghosthouse
Ghosthouse is technically an unofficial sequel to Evil Dead 1 & 2, and part of the “La Casa” series of horror films (the same way that the “Zombi” films are a bunch of Zombi films that are technically unrelated but are all thematically sequels to each other). Continue reading “Film Review: Ghosthouse”
Film Review: Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors
A while back I reviewed one of Amicus’ horror films – the 1972 Tales of the Crypt movie. For the first of my October horror film reviews, I have another Amicus anthology to review: Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors. Continue reading “Film Review: Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors”
Film Review: Nosferatu the Vampyre
How do you take a silent film, that’s one of the most iconic works of German Expressionist cinema alongside the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, remake it in late ’70s and in color, and have it work just as well? You have Werner Herzog do it, apparently. Continue reading “Film Review: Nosferatu the Vampyre”
Film Review: The Omega Man (1971)
The Omega Man is a weird film to think about in the wake of the presidential election. It’s a film that is as counter-cultural as it is against the counter-culture, with a protagonist who, as a character, very heavily represents the establishment, and who is played by an actor whose later life left him intrinsically linked, in a way, with the establishment. Continue reading “Film Review: The Omega Man (1971)”
Film Review: Tales from the Crypt (1972)
One of the strengths of the anthology film in horror, is that horror works really well in short form. It is almost as much the medium of the short story the way that Science Fiction is the realm of the novella and novel, and heroic fantasy is the realm of the novel. This is also why the horror comics of the 50s and 60s leant themselves well to anthology TV series and the anthology film in particular. Continue reading “Film Review: Tales from the Crypt (1972)”
Film Review: God Told Me To (1976)
God Told Me To is an interesting exploitation film. On the one hand, it’s a pretty clear-cut science fiction film on a lot of levels, but on another hand, it has some interesting concepts it plays with with societal paranoia and copycat crimes that gives it a bit of depth. Continue reading “Film Review: God Told Me To (1976)”
Film Review: Extraordinary Tales
I really like anthology films – particularly when it comes to horror. Anthology films let you take a brief period of time to tell an exciting, concise story that can scare you, excite you, or creep you out. Perhaps this is due to many great horror stories being short stories. One of the masters of the horror story was Edgar Allen Poe. This brings me to Extraordinary Tales, an animated anthology film adaptation 5 of Poe’s short stories. Continue reading “Film Review: Extraordinary Tales”